


Three Sentence Ficlets (Star Trek: AOS)

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, 3 Sentence Fiction, Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, Aliens, Banter, Break Up, Communication, Double Drabble, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Femslash, Flirting, Friendship, Gen, Hair Braiding, Het, Light Bondage, Mild Sexual Content, Mirror Universe, Multi, Outer Space, Partnership, Past Relationship(s), Prompt Fic, Propositions, Sex, Teasing, Threesome, Threesome - F/F/M, Threesome - F/M/M, Trust, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:05:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1243891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiny ficlets written for various iterations of the Three Sentence Ficathon, hosted by caramelsilver and rthstewart.</p><p><b>1)</b> Gaila, Nyota, and translation gaps. <b>2)</b> Jim admires Gaila. <b>3)</b> Nyota and Gaila in the Mirror Universe. <b>4)</b> Chris and Winona can't make it work without George. <b>5)</b> Jim, Gaila, and Jim's insecurities. <b>6)</b> Nyota, Gaila, and exploration. <b>7)</b> Gaila, Nyota, and Spock apply the scientific method to sex. <b>8)</b> Gaila braids Nyota's hair. <b>9)</b> Nyota's first time in space. <b>10)</b> Gaila likes making Jim blush. <b>11)</b> T'Pring has a proposition for Nyota. <b>12)</b> Every person is like a new code problem, but with Nyota, Gaila doesn't need to resort to hacking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Body Language (The Scent of Home)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SamuelJames](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamuelJames/gifts).



> These ficlets were written for various iterations of the Three Sentence Ficathon, hosted by caramelsilver and rthstewart. (Yes, I am aware that I didn't manage to keep all of them within the form and structure limitations of the challenge. *sigh*)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [silvr_dagger](http://silvr_dagger.livejournal.com), _[Uhura/Gaila, lost in translation](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/148732.html?thread=3691516#t3691516)_

"You're learning Orion awfully fast for a Terran," Gaila says, reveling in the taste of her birth language on her tongue and lips, the easy slide of muscles and skin now that she's not regimenting herself into the postures and gestures other species are least likely to find unsettling, "even if your accent's hilarious."

"What's wrong with my accent?" Nyota asks, mimicking Gaila's vocal patterns and inflections perfectly; she even does a passable job with her face and shoulders and hands, though her kinesthetic inflections are all High House pride and precision, not Gaila's looser tech gang dialect.

 _Sister/lover/mine, sweet/silly/adorable, cuddle you, lazy pleasure_ , Gaila says in pheromones as she tackles Nyota to her bed and grins down at her alien sister; she breathes in, rolls Nyota's scent across her tongue as it changes from fierce concentration to surprise and tangy, alien lust, both contradicting the careful softness of her limbs and the blankness of her face because she doesn't know what her own body is saying; and she says aloud, "Nothing you can fix," before cutting off Nyota's protest with a kiss.


	2. Stranger in a Strange Land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [scripps](http://scripps.livejournal.com), _[Gaila/Jim, she's more adventurous than him which he loves](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/148732.html?thread=3786748#t3786748)_

What most humans tend to overlook -- because they have the option of overlooking it, because it's a human tendency to assume that the way the world happens to be at the moment is the way it obviously must and should be -- is that Starfleet is, at its base, a human institution: human majority, human organizational rules, structures built on human blueprints, environmental parameters set to human standards, etcetera ad nauseum... which makes sense since Starfleet was a human idea that the other Federation founders agreed to more from a spirit of indulgence than any driving enthusiasm of their own, but still: it all defaults to human.

Gaila isn't human.

Jim didn't join Starfleet until Pike dared him, too busy clinging to his bitterness and curdled anger, but Gaila left everything behind -- her language, her culture, her planet, her _species_ \-- and plunged headfirst into the unknown without so much as a backward glance; she lives every day among aliens who reduce her to a stereotype yet holds onto herself, her goals, and her sheer joy in life; and Jim hopes someday he'll learn to chase his own dreams with half the grace and courage she shares so freely with anyone who has the sense to ask.


	3. Reign in Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [silvr_dagger](http://silvr_dagger.livejournal.com), _[Mirror!Gaila/Mirror!Uhura, plotting the revolution](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/148732.html?thread=3805180#t3805180)_

"Do you think Spock...?" Nyota asks one day as she shucks her skirt and jewelry (but not her knives) in the physical privacy of Gaila's cabin -- _no one_ wants to violate an Orion woman's lair, not and wind up another slave on Gaila's chemical string -- and wonders what insult the captain will use to make her pay for her latest, bloody refusal of his attentions, and how long before she has him at her mercy.

"He'd join us for the push, but not for the follow-through," Gaila says, looking up from the phaser she's sabotaging and running her eyes along Nyota's body with an appreciative smile; she sets her work aside and stands, equally naked and equally armed (though less visibly) and adds, "He wants justice, not power, the poor deluded fool."

Nyota sighs, because idealists are too dangerous to leave alive and free and there goes her half-formed plan of getting Spock to serve as a figurehead in the transitional period once she and Gaila kill Kirk and his faction, until they gather enough support and inspire enough mimics to force the Empire to recognize their authority despite their gender; but she opens her arms to trace razor nails along Gaila's sides, pulls her into the refresher to shield their words with water, and opens Gaila's lips with a kiss, sharing the trace of Kirk's blood still caught on her teeth and tongue.

It tastes of treason.


	4. Not With a Bang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [scripps](http://scripps.livejournal.com), _[George/Chris Pike/Winona, without George it just didn't work](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/148732.html?thread=3829500#t3829500)_

Chris finds Winona on the promenade level of the station, standing against a sliver of window half-hidden behind a bulkhead and thus out of the way of tourists wanting to see the earth, the moon, and the unveiled stars. Her hand is raised toward the jewel-dusted midnight of uncharted space, a hairsbreadth away from touching the double-layered transparent aluminum that can't quite shield against the bitter chill of vacuum, and he thinks of the first time he saw her, laughing in freefall while she held his hand through an emergency patch job on the _Kelvin_ in his first posting, fresh from Starfleet Academy and unable to quite believe she and George were serious when they invited him into their lives and their bed. But that was long ago _'in another country, and besides, the wench is dead,'_ he thinks, and without George's easy humor and bone-deep faith in the universe, he and Winona do nothing but sharpen each other's edges and slice to the bone.

Still, he can't let go without one last try, any more than she can balance between her need for space and her love for the children she leaves on Earth, so he slides into the tiny nook beside her, careful not to touch without invitation, and says, "I got the exec position on the _Constitution_ , for a one-year cruise along the borders. Will you come along so we can keep each other out of trouble?"

"The _Perseverance_ ships out in five days," Winona says without turning, "and you know we'd only goad each other on."

Chris sighs.

Winona presses her hand to the window and turns halfway, faces Chris with dry, sober eyes, and says: "We're not good for each other, Chris, not when all we do is keep George's ghost between us like an accusation. I don't know how we'll heal, but I do know this isn't working. I have a four-month tour. Then I'm going to bury myself in Iowa until I can find what made George love the damn place, and with a bit of luck somewhere along the line I'll find myself and keep from fucking up my sons any more than I've fucked them up already. Don't bury yourself with me. One of us needs to be happy, and right now you're the only one with any chance. _Take it_. And don't ever look back. I won't be waiting."

She pulls him in for a kiss. Then she walks away, as vivid and impossible to ignore as she's always been, though the aura that cloaks her now is defiance and grief instead of joy.

She doesn't look back once.


	5. Sometimes You Fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [silvr_dagger](http://silvr_dagger.livejournal.com), _[Kirk/Gaila, no fear of falling](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/148732.html?thread=3843580#t3843580)_

"When I was a kid, I drove a car over the edge of an old quarry -- did I ever tell you that? -- 'cause yeah, no lies, I gunned it right into thin air, jumped out and back just as the wheels left the ground, nearly missed my grip on the rim... and then the cops caught up," Jim says as Gaila licks her way down his body, running his mouth run in a futile attempt to keep his composure when his hands and feet are tied and he can't move, can't join in, can't be an equal participant; "Scariest damn thing I ever did, swear to god."

Gaila's mouth curves knowingly around his cock as she favors him with skeptical eyebrows, and Jim breaks, so easily, so ready to say anything and everything to keep from begging, babbles like a baby: "Okay, no, joining Starfleet was scarier, and so is every day I wake up and realize some crazy idiots agreed to make me a captain, 'cause if I died then, it was just me, and maybe Mom and Sam, but now it's so many people, not just on the ship but all the people who see us on the news and don't know any better than to believe the hype -- what if I let them all down?"

Gaila pulls her mouth off his cock with a wet kiss, wriggles up his body to wrap her fingers around his wrists and the ropes she tied there, skewers him with a look the way far too many of his friends have learned to do, and tells him, "You can't guarantee anything, no matter how much you plan or how hard you try -- nobody can -- but you can trust your crew to catch you when you jump, just like you can trust me now, Jim; let go and relax, let me make you happy; I won't let you fall alone."


	6. Bring Me That Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [silvr_dagger](http://silvr_dagger.livejournal.com), _[Uhura/Gaila, 'here there be dragons'](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/148732.html?thread=3960572#t3960572)_

The unknown is always dangerous, but every dragon guards a hoard of priceless treasure (or may be persuaded to speak heavenly wisdom, depending on your cultural tradition) and Nyota's never been one to shy away from a calculated risk. Adventure is written into humanity too deep to ever untwine from the weave of genes and environment: the urge to lift roots and strike out for the world beyond the known, for the far horizon and beyond, physically or metaphorically, and what could possibly be more unknown and tempting than a fellow adventurer from beyond the stars, for whom Earth is the land beyond the sunrise, the territory without a map, where fables lurk with golden teeth?

"Let me learn you," she says to Gaila as she presses her roommate to her bed, feels the subtly foreign texture of her skin -- like papyrus, like the supple inner bark of a tree -- and Nyota drinks in Gaila's laughter like the first water in the wilderness, and sets herself to track the river to its source.


	7. Suspect Methodology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For [silvr_dagger](http://silvr_dagger.livejournal.com): _[Star Trek 2009, Spock/Uhura/Gaila, the scientific method](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/149434.html?thread=4386490#t4386490)_. Written Jan. 2, 2015.

"You know, I never believed the rumors about Vulcans, but if you do that thing with your fingers and my face again I think I might actually die of endorphin overload," Gaila said as she flopped backward onto Nyota's bed, her arms sprawling carelessly over Nyota's breasts and Spock's collarbone.

"It hasn't killed me yet, but interspecies differences in physiology and neurochemistry are often unpredictable, so if you'd like to test that hypothesis..." Nyota said, with that wicked little tease tucked away in the corners of her voice that poured over Gaila like sunlight and made her skin feel warm and tight with potential.

Gaila ran her hand down Nyota's belly and dug her fingers into the thatch of sweat-damp hair, then turned to Spock and met his eyebrow with a challenge in her teeth: "I think that's up to the ethics committee, but if the chair is willing, we can get started right away."


	8. Sisterhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written 2/8/15 for [samparker](http://samparker.dreamwidth.org), in response to the prompt: _[Star Trek AOS, Uhura/author's choice, someone playing with her hair](http://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/119267.html?thread=3583971#cmt3583971)_. (200 words exactly)

Gaila has little concept of human social appropriateness, but in her blunt way she's very careful about asking permission -- to touch skin, to use personal names, to have sex -- at least until people make it into her inner circle; this takes Nyota an embarrassingly long time to realize because she's been inside since day one, when she tried out a few Orion phrases she'd looked up the moment she got her roommate assignment and somehow found herself with a best friend (and occasional lover) for life: a sister, as Gaila says.

Nyota has always assumed that's a mistranslation, since she's quite certain she's never been attracted to her blood sisters that way.

But now, as Gaila's fingers move strong and deft over Nyota's scalp, tugging her hair into an intricate crown of braids -- "Hey, fish around in my dresser and find my amber earrings; I want to use them as accents to match your dress and it'll look better if I weave them into the structure instead of jabbing them on after the fact," Gaila says -- Nyota blinks away old memories of laughter and lopsided childish masterpieces, and wonders if Gaila's choice of word has more layers than she'd thought.


	9. firsts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written 12/2/15 for [samparker](http://samparker.livejournal.com), in response to the prompt: [Star Trek AOS, Gaila/Uhura, firsts](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/150194.html?thread=4483762#t4483762).

Technically Nyota has been to space before -- the shuttle from Dar es Salaam to San Francisco crossed the Karman line in its trajectory -- but suborbital flights in a windowless cylinder (however nicely appointed, and that one wasn't very because Starfleet has better things to spend its funding on) aren't the same as actually reaching orbit, let alone flying to another celestial body.

Two months in to her first year at the academy, she stares out one of the myriad viewports on Spacedock Main where she and a quarter of this year's incoming cohort will spend the next three weeks in intensive cross-training; she's seen pictures and videos of Earth framed against the utter blackness of space since before she has conscious memories, and she can recite statistics about this facility for nearly an hour, but all her preparation can't stop the visceral, breathtaking awe of seeing her home so small and fragile down below.

"The first time I saw Orion Prime, we were running for our lives and half the viewport was scorched black from an orbital guard ship's lucky shot," Gaila says as she wraps her arms around Nyota's waist and drops a fleeting kiss to the skin beneath her left ear -- Nyota's breath catches again, for different reasons -- and adds, more softly, "I'm glad your first was better."


	10. but compliments leave us baffled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written 1/14/16 for [samueljames](http://samueljames.livejournal.com), in response to the prompt: [Star Trek AOS, Gaila/Jim Kirk, she likes making him blush](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/150194.html?thread=4754098#t4754098).

Gaila doesn't make Jim blush for the same reason she embarrasses most other Terrans -- that's a pointed quid pro quo for their blatant species chauvinism, and while Jim's far from perfect, he at least understands that humans are more than the crude stereotypes that other species have enlisted them to play in their own deep-brain livewire taboos -- but she still adores the _ipoltu_ -petal flush that seeps over his cheeks and ears and the way he tries so hard to pretend he's not affected by her words, that other people's opinions can't touch him for ill or for good.

And all she has to do is point out when he's been kind.

Gaila tucks her chin over Jim's shoulder while he and his doctor roommate sit bickering amiably at a dive bar just outside Academy grounds and drawls, in one of the intonations Terrans use to imply sexual gossip, "I heard the most _interesting_ rumor this morning..." -- a calibrated pause, just long enough for his mind to race through all the things she might bring up, both welcome and otherwise -- "that you stayed late to help Ahch Ngirzha clean up his lab space and redo his whole experiment after that sulfuric acid spill yesterday; that was very considerate of you!" she finishes in a completely different tone of voice, and drops a kiss on the tip of Jim's nose to keep herself from laughing as an echo of her favorite flower blooms across his face.


	11. no diplomacy like candor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written 11/30/16 for [silvr_dagger](http://silvr_dagger.livejournal.com), in response to the prompt: [Star Trek TOS or AOS, T'Pring/Uhura, a logical arrangement](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/151259.html?thread=5240027#t5240027).

"He must contribute his genes toward the continuation of our species; he requires an advocate to navigate our people's internal politics in his name and that of his family; and he needs my control to lean on when his own fails, as I am sure you can attest it has done at inopportune moments," T'Pring said, somehow managing to make Spock and Nyota's shared bed and cabin look like a throne in an audience chamber, a domain entirely within her own control rather than someone else's home she had entered without invitation.

"All logical arguments," Nyota said, and left the implicit 'so far as they go, which isn't very' hanging in the tone of her voice, the position of her eyebrows, and the faint roughness at the end of the final word as if she'd been about to lead into another phrase.

T'Pring smiled, as shocking and unexpected as rain in the desert, and said, "A most elegant turn of phrase and a true display of cross-species linguistic mastery, though if you had spoken so to me in another world, I might have challenged you to _kal-if-fee_ for your presumption at standing between me and my betrothed; in this one, however, necessity and loss have taught me the art of compromise, and I think that any person Spock would choose to bind himself to is one I might equally choose for myself, for mind, for soul, and for body -- and most particularly, in matters of the body, for your talented tongue."


	12. systems analysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written 12/6/16 for [silvr_dagger](http://silvr_dagger.livejournal.com), in response to the prompt: [Star Trek: AOS, Gaila/Uhura, code](http://caramelsilver.livejournal.com/151259.html?thread=5617115#t5617115).

The code Gaila writes is designed to help complicated chunks of metal and ceramic machinery (i.e., starships) meet their design specs in the most efficient ways (i.e., not explode by accident), and the code Nyota writes is designed to help complicated chunks of biological machinery (i.e., people) talk to each other so _they_ don't explode their own starships by accident either (and only explode other people's starships as an absolute last resort); which is to say, there's a certain amount of overlap despite most people's apparent confusion at hearing an engineer and a linguist swap technical advice along with innuendo and bilingual puns over lunch.

But this isn't what Gaila says when classmates ask her, in vaguely pitying tones, whether it's hard living with someone whose specialty is such a soft and fuzzy branch of science it might as well be in the humanities (which isn't even true, but engineers can be awfully blinkered, Gaila's learned). Instead, she just smiles and says, "Every person is like a new code problem, and I like hacking -- I'll try hacking you if you have a few hours to spare, and I bet even a brute-force attack on your firewalls will be pretty fun for both of us! -- but Nyota tells me her own variables and commands without forcing me to guess, and that's worth a lot."


End file.
